King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (26 page)

Conversations ceased. There was a murmur of anticipation as people turned to the Round Table. It was arranged that forty-eight favored guests would sit at the Table. The remaining guests, numbering several hundred, would sit at the smaller tables, on the stairs, on the floor, or anywhere else where they could find room for themselves and their plate.

Arthur stood at the head table, which was laid for two. Guinevere hurried to his side, calling greetings as she passed through the multitude.

The circular bench around the Round Table began to fill quickly. Suddenly there was a commotion. Merlin was on his feet, screeching and pointing.

“No! Nobody must sit in the Hot Seat!”

The Baron, who had been about to lower his muscular buttocks onto the bench, froze in mid-sit. Carved into the table before him were the words
HOT SEAT
.

“Why not, Merlin?” he asked, amused at the old wizard’s frenzy.

“It means certain death!”

“That’s a bit risky, isn’t it? Why have the seat at all?”

“It’s reserved for a knight who hasn’t yet been born. He will shine like the rising sun above all other knights, and he will champion the oppressed.”

“Whose oppressed will he champion?” asked the Baron, sitting down nevertheless. “Not
my
oppressed, I hope.”

“He will champion the gnomes and will have the knowledge to lead them from the brink of disaster into a place of milk and honey.”

“Sounds like
a giant-sized Drexel Poxy to me,” said the Miggot sourly, glancing at the table where the Gnome from the North and his followers sat.

“Shut up, Merlin!” shouted Gawaine. “We want to eat!”

“I’m just a messenger, that’s all,” grumbled Merlin, as others began to echo Gawaine’s impatience. “Just carrying out Avalona’s wishes, as usual. Sit in the bloody Hot Seat if you like, Baron. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Arthur struck the floor a sharp blow with a staff.

“Eat!” he cried.

And with a creak of heavy timbers the Round Table and its benchload of guests began to revolve.

Horses were in short supply on that momentous day. Nyneve tried the village first, where children were celebrating the absence of their elders. But the only mounts left were broken-down hacks, whose owners were ashamed to be seen riding them. The good horses had been taken to the chapel near Pentor. However, the sun was high in the sky, and the guests would by now be riding the forest trails southward toward the Great Hall less than a mile away. Nyneve took one last glance at the sorry group of nags and decided to walk it.

She reached the Great Hall at the same time as the first guests and withdrew among the trees to watch. After a while the bride and groom arrived in the carriage lent by Baron Menheniot for the occasion. They dismounted, smiling and waving. Arthur had changed out of his armor and wore a green doublet and black hose. Gwen wore a simple pale blue dress trimmed with gray lace. To Nyneve’s prejudiced eye she looked particularly stupid. The guests cheered. Nyneve bit back a howl of anguish. More guests arrived, tethering their horses under the trees.

Nyneve sighted a big white stallion tossing its head and snorting in spirited fashion—an eminently suitable beast with which to disrupt a wedding feast. It was tethered to a beech a little apart from the other animals, probably because of its mettlesome nature. As the last guests filed into the Great Hall, Nyneve
crept forward, unhitched the reins from a low bough, and mounted.

She rode quietly away, intending to kill time until the feast was in progress. The stallion moved gracefully, well under control. When she was safely out of earshot, she urged him into a gallop. Branches whipped past her face, sunlight alternated with flitting shadows, the wind cooled her face and lifted her hair, and her misery was soon transformed into exhilaration.

“Yaaah!” she yelled. The powerful back of the stallion surged beneath her, and for a moment the world looked good.

Then, unexpectedly, the horse shied.

Nyneve left the saddle, saw the ground rising to meet her, curled herself into a ball, and rolled. She came to rest with a thump against the bole of a tree and, blinking dizzily, saw the cause of her horse’s sudden fright.

The Sharan trotted past, head down, drooling.

Nyneve hurried after her, the wedding feast forgotten for the moment. The Sharan must be caught and returned to gnomedom, quickly. If at all possible, she should be kept out of human view; Fang had warned Nyneve of the implications if the Sharan became a common sight around the forest.

“Let the giants think she’s just an ordinary unicorn,” the little man had said. “They don’t expect to see unicorns very often. If they find out what the Sharan can do, they might start getting funny ideas. They’re not so scrupulous about creation as the Miggot is.”

And Nyneve knew Fang was right.

“Here, Sharan!” she called. The animal snorted and broke into a gallop. Nyneve ran for the stallion, threw herself into the saddle, and set off in pursuit. “Sharan!” she shouted desperately. Matters worsened as they burst from the trees and the Great Hall came into view. An excited barking broke out, and a pack of dogs joined the chase, snapping at the Sharan’s heels. Terrified, the animal sped for the open door of the Great Hall.

*  *  *

“It’s wonderful,
Arthur,” said Gwen. “How did you do it?”

The Round Table, with its great circular bench, rotated slowly past them; first one guest and then another would glance around, nod and smile, then abandon himself once more to gluttony. Arthur and Gwen sat at their separate table; therefore no knight could consider himself favored above others. Each had his turn in honored proximity to Arthur.

“The trick was more in keeping it secret.” He laughed, tossing a beef rib to Bull’s-eye. “The Table stands on an axle extending down into the cellar. It revolves in a box of tallow on the cellar floor.”

“But what turns it?”

“A team of horses in the cellar. Four of them, harnessed to arms projecting from the axle. It’s all very scientifically advanced. Even Merlin was impressed. He said Avalona couldn’t have done better herself.”

“I’m proud of you, Arthur,” said Gwen, and she slipped her hand under the table and squeezed his thigh.

He regarded her, feeling a faint but welcome tingling in his loins. There was no doubt she was pretty today. And the blue dress revealed just enough of her breasts to intrigue a man without frightening him off.

“Lucky man, Arthur,” called Baron Menheniot, swinging smoothly past.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Gwen suddenly.

A commotion had broken out at the far end of the Great Hall. They heard shouting and the crash of breaking pottery. A table overturned, then an animal came dashing among the festive crowd: silver white and goat-sized, with a single golden horn projecting from its forehead. It was the horn more than anything else that had caused the uproar. The animal was singularly careless about where it was pointed.

Bull’s-eye jumped up with a bark. The unicorn, which had been making for the head table, veered aside and bounded onto the Round Table, skidding among the platters and scattering
them into the laps of the diners. Bull’s-eye jumped up and attacked the unicorn viciously, snarling and leaping for the throat. The unicorn shook him off. Then the village dogs came pouring into the Hall in full cry, followed by a young girl on a white stallion.

“It’s that little bitch Nyneve!” cried Gwen. “What the hell does she think she’s playing at?”

People had jumped to their feet to catch the unicorn and control the dogs. Now they scattered as the stallion cantered up to the Round Table and, urged by Nyneve, climbed onto it to join the Sharan and a dozen dogs. The gnomes, anxious to protect the Sharan, began to slip between the diners and scramble onto the Table too.

“Get her down from there, Arthur,” cried Gwen. “She’s spoiling everything!”

Arthur gazed up at Nyneve, fascinated. She was wearing a man’s white shirt with full sleeves. The front was trimmed with lace and carelessly buttoned; from where he sat, he caught a glimpse of the underside of one brown breast. Her leather skirt was short and her bare legs long, muscles tense as they gripped the flanks of her horse. She shook her hair away from her face, swinging it back in a rippling black wave, and stared arrogantly at her audience.

Stunned into silence, her audience stared back. The dogs stopped barking as they realized there was food all around them, free for the taking. Nyneve struck a dramatic pose, head back, one hand high. The audience held its breath, waiting for her to speak.

Nyneve came to her senses.

Suddenly she became aware of her situation. What in hell was she doing up here? The blur of faces became real people: Arthur, Guinevere, Pellinore, Palomides, Gawaine, Torre, all watching her, all registering every nuance of her behavior. Hundreds of people, each one storing a memory of her sitting on a stolen horse, standing on the remains of a ruined feast, half mad with jealousy and humiliation, revolving slowly as though on display. She would see this memory in the faces of those people from this moment on, whenever she met them
in the forest. It would be there, haunting her, until every last one of them died.

Perhaps she should die first, and be free of them all. What a gesture that would be! They should remember her death rather than her disgrace. She dropped her hand to the dagger at her waist. Death for the love of Arthur! She would shout those words and insure herself a place in the legends of the land. The dagger was in her hand now, mere inches from her breast. Good-bye, Mara Zion! Good-bye, forest creatures. Good-bye, rabbits, gnomes, Fang! Her soft breast that hurt when men touched it too roughly, yet felt so good when the hands were kind. … Don’t lose resolve! Now cut through that breast into the heart thumping beneath!

Now!

And the words! Shout the words!

Now …

Why was her hand trembling so? Why was her breast so sensitive, so painful? Why was her body suddenly so precious?

Why was she starting to cry?

Her hand dropped to her side. Through a mist of tears she saw people climbing onto the table, clawing for her.

“To hell with you all!” she said, sobbing. She clapped her heels into the flanks of the stallion and urged him into a standing jump from the table.

The structure emitted a groan and tilted. Platters slid. People scattered as Nyneve left the Hall at full gallop.

“That poor girl,” murmured Arthur. Gwen glanced at him but said nothing.

The Round Table, revolving askew, jammed against the floor and stopped.

It was the mortal blow. The horses in the cellar, already thrown off-balance when the axlebox slid out of position, panicked as the jerk brought them to a sudden halt. They threw themselves against the harness, plunging and neighing. In the Great Hall the table made one rapid revolution, scattering gnomes, food, dogs, and the Sharan. In the cellar the axlebox skated across the floor,
coming to rest against the wall with the axle tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees.

The sudden strain proved too much for the joists, and the floor collapsed with a series of sharp, splintering reports. The axle broke, and the Round Table, with its complement of diners and food, disappeared into the cellar with a crash heard by the children in Mara Zion village a mile away.

Arthur and Gwen sat stunned, staring into the yawning hole in the floor. The Sharan bolted for the forest, followed by the village dogs, including Bull’s-eye.

Catching sight of Torre picking himself up, Arthur said, “Send Pellinore after that damned Nyneve and bring her to me. I’ll deal with her, Avalona or no Avalona. And get Gawaine and a couple of others to help the gnomes catch the Sharan. And you, go and get that bloody dog of mine. I’m going to thrash him to within an inch of his life!”

There was a long silence. Gwen and Torre stared at each other.

“Get on with it!” shouted Arthur.

“Arthur,” said Torre quietly, “you’ve fulfilled the prophesy.”

“What you just said …” whispered Gwen. “It’s
exactly
the way the story goes. You couldn’t have known. You never heard the story.”

“Bugger the story!” snapped Arthur, staring down into the cellar. Cries and groans rose out of the wreckage. “How bad is it down there?” he called.

“A few bruises,” came the voice of Gawaine. “Gaheris seems to have a broken leg, and Kay’s arm doesn’t look too good. We need help down here. I can see somebody still trapped under the table. Bring some light, will you?”

Torches were lit and passed down through the wreckage. The horses were calmed and led away. Balks of timber were placed under the edge of the fallen table, and teams of men struggled to lever it off the trapped man.

Arthur and Gwen hurried down the cellar steps, arriving as the inert form was being dragged clear by the shoulders. The head hung at an unnatural and terrifying angle.

“It’s the
Baron!” Gwen exclaimed. “Is he badly hurt?”

Lancelot was kneeling beside the man, his ear pressed to the broad chest. When he looked up, his face was sad. “I think he’s dead, Arthur,” he said.

“He paid the penalty for sitting in the Hot Seat,” said Merlin gloomily. “I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

The word passed from mouth to mouth, and up in the Great Hall the sorrowing began.

“I
T’S NIGHTS
LIKE THIS,” SAID FANG, “THAT MAKE
you wonder why humans build their dwellings aboveground.”

He was slumped comfortably before the fire with a mug of beer clasped in both hands. The Princess sat opposite, rocking the baby in its crib. Fang found himself smiling proudly. It was an instinctive reaction, the way his face fixed itself into a grin whenever he looked at baby Will. Now three weeks old, the funny little creature was beginning to assume a reassuringly gnomelike appearance.

“We’ll never call him Willie,” he said. “My father still calls me Willie sometimes. It’s a stupid name. It discourages a gnome from doing anything with his life. You have to be careful with names. Look at the Miggot’s cousin Hal. He started calling himself Hal o’ the Moor and now he’s stuck with living up there. Can you imagine what Pentor’s like on a night like this?”